History of Rome, books 1-10

Tullius was now first centurion for the seventh time, and there was not in the whole army amongst the infantry officers a more distinguished soldier.

He led the procession to the tribunal, and Sulpicius was not more surprised at seeing the gathering than at seeing Tullius at the head of it. He began: “Do not be surprised, Dictator, at my being here.

The whole army is under the impression that it has been condemned by you for cowardice and to mark its disgrace has been deprived of its arms. It has asked me to plead its cause before you.

Even if we could be charged with deserting our ranks and turning our backs to the enemy, or with the disgraceful loss of our standards, even then I should think it only fair for you to allow us to amend our fault by courage and to wipe out the memory of our disgraceful conduct by winning fresh glory.

Even the legions which were routed at the Alia marched out afterwards from Veii and recovered the City which they had lost through panic. For us, thanks to the goodness of the gods and the happy fortune which attends on you and on Rome, our fortunes and our honour remain unimpaired.

And yet I hardly dare mention the word “honour” whilst the enemy ventures to mock us with every kind of insult, as if we were hiding ourselves like women behind our rampart, and —what grieves us much more —even you our commander have made up your mind that your army is without courage, without weapons, without hands to use them, and before you have put us to the proof have so despaired of us that you look upon yourself as the commander of cripples and weaklings.

What other reason can we believe there to be, why you, a veteran commander, a most gallant soldier, should be as they say sitting with your arms folded? However the case may be, it is more true to say that you appear to doubt our courage than that we doubt yours.”

“But if this is not your doing, but a piece of State policy, if it is some concerted scheme of the patricians and not war with the Gauls that is keeping us in banishment from the City and from our household gods, then I ask you to regard what I am now going to say as addressed not by soldiers to their commander but to the patricians by the plebs, who say that as you have your projects so they will have theirs.

Who could possibly be angry with us for regarding ourselves as your soldiers, not your slaves, sent to war not into banishment, ready, if any one gives the sign and leads us into battle, to fight as becomes men and Romans, equally ready, if there is no need for arms, to live a life of peace and quietness in Rome rather than in camp? This is what we would say to the patricians.”

“But you are our commander, and we your soldiers implore you to give us a chance of fighting. We are eager to win a victory, but to win it under your leadership; it is on you that we want to bestow the laurels of glory, it is with you that we desire to enter the City in triumphal procession, it is behind your chariot that we would go with joyous thanksgivings up to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.”

This speech of Tullius' was followed by earnest requests from the whole army that he would give the signal and order them to arm.

Although the Dictator recognized that, however satisfactory the soldiers' action might be, a most undesirable precedent had been set, he nevertheless undertook to carry out their wishes.

He interrogated Tullius privately as to what the whole thing meant and what warrant he had for his procedure. Tullius earnestly entreated the Dictator not to think that he had forgotten military discipline or the respect due to his commanding officer. “But an excited multitude is generally swayed by their advisers, and he had consented to act as their leader to prevent any one else from coming forward whom they might have chosen because he shared their excitement.

He himself would do nothing against the wish of the commanderin-chief, but the commander also must be most careful to keep his men in hand. They were too excited now to be put off; they would themselves choose the place and time for fighting if the Dictator did not do so.” During this conversation some cattle which happened to be grazing outside the rampart were being driven off by a Gaul, when two Roman soldiers took them from him.

The Gauls pelted them with stones, a shout was raised by the Roman outpost and men ran together from both sides. Affairs were rapidly approaching a pitched battle had not the centurions promptly stopped the fighting.

This incident confirmed the Dictator's belief in what Tullius had told him, and as matters no longer admitted of delay he issued orders to prepare for battle on the following day. The Dictator was going into action feeling more assured as to the courage than as to the strength of his troops. He began to turn over in his mind every possible device by which he could inspire fear into the enemy.

At last he thought out an ingenious and original plan, one, too, which has since been adopted by many of our own generals as well as those of other countries and which is even practised to-day. He ordered the packsaddles to be taken off the mules and two pieces of coloured cloth placed on their backs.

The muleteers were then furnished with arms, some taken from the prisoners and others belonging to the invalided soldiers, and after thus equipping about a thousand of them and

distributing a hundred of the cavalry amongst them he ordered them to ascend the mountains which overlooked the camp and conceal themselves in the woods, and remain there motionless till they received the signal from him.

As soon as it grew light the Dictator extended his lines along the lower slopes of the mountain in order that the enemy might have to form their front facing the mountain.

The arrangements for creating a groundless alarm were now completed, and that groundless alarm proved almost more serviceable than an actual increase of strength would have been. At first the leaders of the Gauls did not believe that the Romans would come down on to the plain, but when they saw them suddenly descending, they rushed on to meet them, eager for the encounter, and the battle commenced before the signal had been given by the commanders.

The Gauls directed their fiercest attack upon the Roman right, and the Dictator's presence with that division alone prevented the attack from succeeding.

When he saw the men wavering he called out sharply to Sextius and asked him if this was the way in which he had pledged his soldiers to fight. “Where,” he cried, “are the shouts of the men who clamoured for arms? Where are their threats of going into battle without their commander's orders?

Here is the commander, calling loudly to them to fight, and himself fighting in the forefront of the battle; who out of all those who were just now going to lead the way was following him? Braggarts in camp, cowards in battle!” They felt the truth of what they heard, and they were so stung by a sense of shame that they rushed on the enemy's weapons without any thought of danger.

They charged like madmen and threw the enemy's lines into confusion, and a cavalry attack which followed turned the confusion into rout.

As soon as the Dictator saw their line broken in this part of the field he turned the attack on to their left, where he saw them closing up into a crowded mass, and at the same time gave the agreed signal to those on the mountain.

When a fresh battle shout arose and these were seen crossing the mountain slope in the direction of the Gauls' camp, the enemy, afraid of being cut off, gave up the fight and ran in wild disorder to their camp.

They were met by Marcus Valerius, the Master of the Horse, who after putting their right wing to flight was riding up to their lines, and he turned their flight towards the mountain and woods.

A great many were intercepted by the muleteers whom they took for cavalry, and a terrible slaughter took place amongst those whom panic had driven into the woods after the main battle was over. No one since Camillus celebrated a more justly deserved triumph over the Gauls than C. Sulpicius.

A large quantity of gold taken out of the spoil was dedicated by him and stored away in a vault beneath the Capitol. The campaigns in which the consuls for the year were engaged ended in a very different way.

Whilst the Hernici were defeated and reduced to submission by his colleague, Fabius showed a sad want of caution and skill in his operations against the Tarquinians. The humiliation which Rome incurred through his defeat was embittered by the barbarity of the enemy, who sacrificed 307 prisoners of war.

That defeat was followed by a sudden predatory incursion of the Privernates and afterwards by one in which the Veliternians took part.

In this year two additional tribes were formed —the Pomptine and the Publilian. The Games which Camillus had vowed when Dictator were celebrated. A measure dealing with improper canvassing was for the first time submitted to the people, after passing the senate, by C. Poetilius, tribune of the plebs.

It was intended to check the canvassing, mainly by rich plebeians, in the markets and promiscuous gatherings.

Another measure, by no means so welcome to the patricians, was brought forward the following year, the consuls being C. Marcius and Cnaeus Manlius. M. Duilius and L. Menenius, tribunes of the plebs, were the proposers of this measure, which fixed the rate of interest at 8 and 1/3 per cent.;

the plebs adopted it with much more eagerness than the Poetilian Law against canvassing. In addition to the fresh wars decided upon the previous year, the Faliscans had been guilty of two acts of hostility; their men had fought in the ranks of the Tarquinians, and they had refused to give up those who had fled after their defeat to Tarquinii, when the Fetials demanded their surrender.

That campaign fell to Cn. Manlius; Marcius conducted the operations against Privernum. This district had remained uninjured during the long years of peace, and when Marcius led his army thither, they loaded themselves with plunder.

Its value was enhanced by the munificence of the consul, for he appropriated none of it for the State, and so encouraged the efforts of the private soldier to increase his private means. The Privernates had formed a strongly entrenched camp in front of their walls, and before attacking it Marcius summoned his troops to assembly, and said: “If you promise me that you will do your duty bravely in battle and are quite as ready for fighting as for plunder, I give you now the camp and city of the enemy.”

With a mighty shout they demanded the signal for battle, and with heads erect and full of confidence they marched proudly into line. Sex. Tullius, who has been already mentioned, was in the front, and he called out, “See, General, how your army is fulfilling its promise to you,” and with the word he dropped his javelin and drawing his sword charged the enemy.

The whole of the front line followed him and at the very first onset defeated the Privernates and pursued them as far as the town, which they prepared to storm. When the scaling ladders were actually placed against the walls the place surrendered. A triumph was celebrated over the Privernates.

Nothing worth recording was done by the other consul, except his unprecedented action in getting a law passed in camp by the tribes levying 5 per cent. on the value of every slave who was manumitted.As the money raised under this law would be a handsome addition to the exhausted treasury, the senate confirmed

it. The tribunes of the plebs, however, looking not so much to the law as to the precedent set, made it a capital offence for any one to convene the Assembly outside their usual place of meeting. If it were once legalised, there was nothing, however injurious to the people, which could not be carried through men who were bound by the oath of military

obedience. In this year C. Licinius Stolo was impeached by M. Popilius Laenas for having violated his own law; he and his son together occupied a thousand jugera of land, and he had emancipated his son in order to evade the law. He was condemned to pay a fine of 10,000 ases.

The new consuls were M. Fabius Ambustus and M. Popilius Laenas, each for the second time. They had two wars on hand.

The one which Laenas waged against the Tiburtines presented little difficulty; after driving them into their city he ravaged their fields. The other consul, who was operating against the Faliscans and Tarquinians, met with a defeat in the first battle.

What mainly contributed to it and produced a real terror amongst the Romans was the extraordinary spectacle presented by their priests who, brandishing lighted torches and with what looked like snakes entwined in their hair, came on like so many Furies.

At this sight the Romans were like men distraught or thunderstruck and rushed in a panic-stricken mass into their entrenchments. The consul and his staff officers and the military tribunes laughed at them and scolded them for being terrified by conjuring tricks like a lot of boys.

Stung by a feeling of shame, they suddenly passed from a state of terror to one of reckless daring, and they rushed like blind men against what they had just fled from. When, after scattering the idle pageantry of the enemy, they got at the armed men behind, they routed the entire army.

The same day they gained possession of the camp, and after securing an immense amount of booty returned home flushed with victory, jesting as soldiers do, and deriding the enemy's contrivance and their own panic. This led to a rising of the whole of Etruria, and under the leadership of the Tarquinians and Faliscans they marched to the salt-works.

In this emergency C. Marcius Rutilus was nominated Dictator —the first Dictator nominated from the plebs —and he appointed as Master of the Horse C. Plautius, also a plebeian. The patricians were indignant at even the dictatorship becoming common property, and they offered all the resistance in their power to any decree being passed or any preparations made to help the Dictator in prosecuting that war.

This only made the people more ready to adopt every proposal which the Dictator made.

On leaving the City he marched along both banks of the Tiber, ferrying the troops across in whichever direction the enemy were reported to be; in this way he surprised many of the raiders scattered about the fields. Finally he surprised and captured their camp; 8ooo prisoners were taken, the rest were either killed or hunted out of the Roman territory.

By an order of the people which was not confirmed by the senate a triumph was awarded him.

As the senate would not have the elections conducted by a plebeian Dictator or a plebeian consul, they fell back on an interregnum. There was a succession of interreges —Q. Servilius Ahala, M. Fabius, Cn. Manlius, C. Fabius, C. Sulpicius, L. Aemilius, Q. Servilius, and M. Fabius Ambustus.

In the second of these interregna a contest arose because two patrician consuls were elected. When the tribunes interposed their veto and appealed to the Licinian Law, Fabius, the interrex, said that it was laid down in the Twelve Tables that whatever was the last order that the people made that should have the force of law, and the people had made an order by electing the two consuls.

The tribunes' veto only availed to postpone the elections, and ultimately two patrician consuls were elected, namely C. Sulpicius Peticus (for the third time) and M. Valerius Publicola. They entered upon their office the day they were elected.

So in the 4ooth year from the foundation of the City and the 35th after its capture by the Gauls, the second consulship was wrested from the plebs, for the first time since the passing of the Licinian Law seven years previously. Empulum was taken this year from the Tiburtines without any serious fighting.

It seems uncertain whether both consuls held joint command in this campaign, as some writers assert, or whether the fields of the Tarquinians were ravaged by Sulpicius at the same time that Valerius was leading his legions against the Tiburtines. The consuls had a more serious conflict at home with the plebs and their tribunes.

They considered it as a question not only of courage but of honour and loyalty to their order that as two patricians had received the consulship so they should hand it on to two patricians.

They felt that they must either renounce all claims to it, if it became a plebeian magistracy, or they must keep it in its entirety as a possession which they had received in its entirety from their fathers. The plebs protested:“What were they living for?

Why were they enrolled as citizens if they could not with their united strength maintain the right to what had been won for them by the courage of those two men, L. Sextius and C. Licinius?

It were better to put up with kings or decemvirs or any other form of absolutism, even though with

a worse name, than to see both consuls patricians, the other side not alternately governing and being governed but regarding itself as placed in perpetual authority, and looking upon the plebs as simply born to be their slaves.” There was no lack of tribunes to lead the agitation, but in such a state of universal excitement everybody was his own leader.

After many fruitless journeys to the Campus Martius, where numerous election days had been wasted in disturbances, the plebs was at last worsted by the steady persistence of the consuls.

There was such a feeling of despair that the tribunes, followed by a gloomy and sullen plebs, exclaimed as they left the Campus that there was an end to all liberty, and that they must not only quit the Campus but must even abandon the City now that it was crushed and enslaved by the tyranny of the patricians.

The consuls, though deserted by the majority of the people, only a few voters remaining behind, proceeded none the less determinedly with the election. Both the consuls elected were patricians, M. Fabius Ambustus (for the third time) and T Quinctius. In some of the annalists I find M. Popilius given as consul instead of T. Quinctius.

. Two wars were brought to a successful close this year. The Tiburtines were reduced to submission; the city of Sassula was taken from them and all their other towns would have shared the same fate had not the nation as a whole laid down their arms and made peace with the consul.

A triumph was celebrated over them, otherwise the victory was followed by mild treatment of the vanquished. The Tarquinians were visited with the utmost severity. A large number were killed in battle; of the prisoners, all those of noble birth to the number of 358 were sent to Rome, the rest were put to the sword.

Those who had been sent to Rome met with no gentler treatment from the people, they were all scourged and beheaded in the middle of the Forum This punishment was an act of retribution for the Romans who had been immolated in the forum of Tarquinii. These successes in war induced the Samnites to ask for a league of friendship.

Their envoys received a favourable reply from the senate and a treaty of alliance was concluded with them.

The plebs did not enjoy the same good fortune at home which they had met with in the field. In spite of the reduction in the rate of interest, which was now fixed at 8 and 1/3 per cent., the poor were unable to repay the capital, and were being made over to their creditors. Their personal distress left them little thought for public affairs and political struggles, elections, and patrician consuls; both consulships accordingly remained with the patricians.

The consuls elected were C. Sulpicius Peticus (for the fourth time) and M. Valerius Publicola (for the second). Rumours were brought that the people of Caere, out of sympathy with their co-nationalists, had sided with the Tarquinians. Whilst the minds of the citizens were in consequence filled with apprehensions of a war with Etruria, the arrival of envoys from Latium diverted their thoughts to the Volscians. They reported that an army had been raised and equipped and was now threatening their frontiers and intended to enter and ravage the Roman territory.

The senate thought that neither of these movements ought to be ignored; orders were issued for troops to be enrolled for both wars; the consuls were to draw lots for their respective commands.

The arrival of despatches from the consul Sulpicius made the Etruscan war appear the more serious of the two. He was directing the operations against Tarquinii, and reported that the country round the Roman salt-works had been raided and a portion of the plunder sent to Caere, some of whose men had undoubtedly been amongst the depredators.

The consul Valerius, who was acting against the Volscians and had his camp on the frontiers of Tusculum, was recalled and received orders from the senate to nominate a Dictator.

Titus, the son of Lucius Manlius, was nominated, and he named A. Cornelius Cossus as Master of the Horse. Finding the army which the consul had commanded sufficient for his purpose, he was authorised by the senate and the people to formally declare war upon the Caerites.

It would seem as though this formal declaration of war brought home to the Caerites the horrors of a war with Rome more clearly than the action of those who had provoked the Romans by their depredations. They realised how unequal their strength was to such a conflict; they bitterly regretted the raid, and cursed the Tarquinians who had instigated them to revolt.

No one made any preparation for war, but each did his utmost to urge the despatch of an embassy to Rome to beg pardon for their offence. When the deputation came before the senate they were referred by the senate to the people.